iDEA Inspiring Digital Enterprise Awards
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How businesses share and publish content

Let’s start by finding some key words in the diagram below:

    Good Work!

    Let’s understand a little more on how businesses share and publish content on Social Media:

    Frequency of updates

    The frequency with which you should post updates depends on:

    • Your type of business: if you’re a news organisation you might be expected to post more regularly than, for example, if you are an accountant.
    • Your audience and how hungry they are for information, and, of course, what you have to say.

    Although you can find an abundance of online resources that can be used as guidelines, you will have to evaluate for yourself what works best for your type of business on each of the platforms.

    Users tend to reach for the most recent posts on their feeds, so Social Media updates might not last long. Your mission is to find the fine balance between not overwhelming your audience with too many posts and keeping your posts visible for as much time as possible.

    Consistent Branding and Voice

    Your social presence is just an extension of your brand, allowing that brand to reach many people through networked experiences. This can be both a risk and an opportunity, so it’s important to spend the time it takes to decide and define what your brand will be in the social environment, as inconsistency in this area can lead to a disjointed customer experience (or even a negative impact).

    • Get to know your audience

      Know your audience. Be on-brand, but also be relevant to the environment in which you're working. Your audience, or the social platform you are engaging on, may require that you slightly change your tone of voice. This is where it's important to have a really solid understanding of your brand so you can adapt as necessary. Use analytics to monitor and get a better understanding of your audience. You will learn more about how to use analytics in Social Media later in this badge.

    • Guidelines

      Reinforce your brand identity with a clear brand voice and consistent presence by creating a Social Media stylebook that everyone who posts on your social accounts has access to. Determine what the brand tone will be and keep visual consistency to ensure your brand is easily recognizable.

    • Humanise

      Humanising your brand voice will help will create a tone that people can relate to and build relationships with.

    How to earn familiarity, trust, and likeability in your community

    Building a reputation around these three qualities is part of what goes into building relationships. Building relationships online for your brand is not all that different from building relationships offline.

    Be present

    Being present is the first step. Give people a reason to invest in the relationship; if you don't prove you're going to stick around or pop in at least somewhat regularly, people won't have any reason to connect with you in the first place.

    Practice etiquette

    Don't be too pushy or forward, don’t post something that could cause offence to others and make sure that you treat others with respect. It's good practice during major breaking news to turn off all promoted and scheduled posts.

    TipIf you haven’t done so already, do the Ethics and Safety on Social Media iDEA badge to learn more about this.

    Add value

    You're building a network and trying to establish your business here. Adding value will help you be recognised as helpful, authoritative, and ultimately, make you a wanted part of the community. Offer assistance, answer questions, and go out of your way to make someone's life easier or brighter.

    Be inclusive

    Don’t treat a select few so exclusively that people new to your brand or account feel as if they're outsiders. Try to make everybody you engage with, and those looking on, feel like they’re special and part of the in-crowd.

    Crisis management

    Hopefully, you’ll never be faced with a crisis but it’s important to be prepared. Especially as Social Media can add an extra layer of complication to such a situation. The best way to fight chaos is with clarity. It is also critical not to be over-hasty or thoughtless, including reacting in the heat of the moment. Emotions can cloud your judgement.

    When in crisis mode work to first understand the level of severity then identify the potential risks, and escalate accordingly. Work through the crisis by listening intently, showing empathy, transparency, and a willingness to correct whatever may have gone wrong.

    Afterwards, examining the impact and pulling insight from the situation can help your business heal, move forward, and gain traction toward a strong position which will help you safeguard against other problems in the future.

    When thinking about crisis management, all companies should be in one of the following four stages at all times:

    • 1

      PreparationUnderstand the risks, build an escalation process, draft responses, make sure everyone knows their roles and responsibilities, staff training, etc.

    • 2

      RespondingIf necessary, following up, measuring and monitoring reach, volume, etc.

    • 3

      RecoveryTypically consists of more measurement, follow up, case-studies, and knowledge sharing throughout the organization.

    • 4

      Prevention Analysis of crisis and existing procedures, identification of opportunities for improvement, and acknowledgement of what worked well.

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